Green Footprints

From Waste to Resource: Green Footprints showcases how practical, innovative solutions can bring sustainability into daily operations and can have a triple bottom line — with both economic, environmental, and social impact.

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Sune Rieper

Senior Lead Designer, Partner, Architect

Location

Rønne, Denmark

Size

65,000 m2

Year

2012 — 2015

Client

Green Solution House

Role

Lead Landscape Architect

Partners & Collaborators

GXN, Rambøll, Steenbergs Tegnestue

Awards

Bornholm Regionkommune's Architecture Award

The landscape Green Footprints around Bornholm’s hotel and conference center Green Solution House, establishes Bornholm as a model for sustainability, environmental responsibility, and renewable energy. Here, building and landscape work together in a dynamic project where waste is transformed into resources.

Green Footprints serves as both a demonstrator and innovation lab for the development of sustainable solutions. It transforms residue material from, e.g., local granite mining and glass-blowing industries into eco-friendly building materials for the largest Cradle to Cradle nature park in the Nordics.

The circular approach has become a visible part of the landscape as green solutions and actions. They combine ecological and economic benefits, creating experiences and added value in more than one sense. We replace conventional methods concerning materials, energy, building and waste disposal with innovative green alternatives that have a self-sustaining positive impact and turn residue into resources.


Soil balance = Water balance

Green Footprints optimizes the natural topography. Surplus soil from building construction is utilized to shape the landscape, rather than contributing to pollution when shipped away. Thus, the landscape is shaped to allow rainwater to run to the lowest point where it is stored in lush water ponds, preventing flooding in surrounding areas . Here, the rain is slowly soaked into the ground, irrigates the plants or evaporates back into the environment. Water becomes an active participant in the landscape, to the delight of plants, animals, and people. No water ends up in sewers, even during extreme weather events.

Material circuit and asphalt

The landscape’s asphalt exemplifies an innovative cradle-to-cradle inspired solution, combining Vegecol — a 100% plant-based binder that reduces CO2-emissions with local residue material from Bornholm: waste glass from glass-blowers, granite, and material from demolished buildings and processing. Vegecol, unlike oil-based Bitumen, doesn’t pollute rainwater, allowing it to be directed to the ponds and to use it for irrigation. The paving is not only environmentally sound and flood-preventative but also has a unique glittering look from up-cycled glass.


Biological circuit

Green Footprints incorporates a pyrolysis system that transforms organic garbage into biochar and gas. All food waste is ground and collected in tanks, then transferred to the pyrolysis system and burned. The residual product is one of the best fertilizers and can be used for the park and its kitchen garden.

The gas from the system can be used in motors that produce electricity, and the heat from the process warms Green Solution House. This pyrolysis system is the first small-scale system suitable for smaller businesses. It allows Green Solution House to have its own bio-material circuit, minimize its amount of garbage, and gain returns on sustainable investments.

Testing the permeability of a glass composite — made with broken glass from local artist, Pernille Bülow's, glasswork.
When granite is cut into blocks and stones at the local quarry, a residual product is always left over. At Green Footprints, local granite of all sizes is used for e.g. the parking lot. Here, gravel and granite dust make up the top layer instead of traditional, polluting asphalt. Traffic is directed by large granite blocks and native vegetation that also give the parking area a uniquely 'Bornholmian' expression.

Bottom-line

By upcycling local materials, Green Footprints reduces the need for resource extraction and material imports to Bornholm, as well as the export of local waste. This approach is cost-effective, sustainable, and celebrates local culture, nature, and history. Local industries also benefit from the demand for materials and processes, while Bornholm’s new brand as a frontrunner in sustainability boosts tourism.

A bitumen-free asphalt — made from granite and broken glass — is used on Green Footprints' paths.
The local wood mill, Østerlars Savværk, supplies wood from the nearby forest for Green Footprint’s boardwalk and terraces. The wood mill owner only cuts down the oldest trees, leaving twigs, branches, and stumps to decompose and provide habitat for the forest’s fauna.

Fundamentals

Come explore the fundamentals of our office together with us

fund. 26

Atmosphere

“Atmosphere is a thin film of enclosure around our world. Without our vaporous, water filled atmosphere, life on Earth – or indeed life anywhere – would not exist. But atmosphere is also what you sense…

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fund. 26

Sound

“Sound. The soundtrack of our lives often passes us by without us noticing. But I have begun noticing the poetry of the noises around me. The rhythm and the song of the poet. The calling…

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fund. 19

Essay: The Bark Room

“Bark is both living and dead, growing and cracking, a shell, a protective layer and an integral part of the wood’s tissue. It’s the bark structure and the way it peels, which separates the different…

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fund. 12

Mist

Mist is a phenomenon caused by small droplets of water suspended in air. Physically, it is an example of a dispersion. It is most commonly seen where warm, moist air meets sudden cooling, such as…

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fund. 27

White

“In the beginning was chaos. While the universe began to expand after Big Bang it also decreased in temperature. It became more and more ordered. With that order, the Universe changed its background colour toward…

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fund. 25

Roots

“A tree consists of three parts: Its foliage, its trunk, and its roots. All three parts are important for the aesthetic feeling of nature. But of these three I find the roots most intriguing, most…

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fund. 20

Sakuteiki
– The Book of Garden

Sakuteki – The Book of Garden is a manual, a textbook for Japanese gardeners in the 11th century. This introduction sounds like this: “In making the garden, you should first understand the overall principles. According…

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